These are the peppers i set in the seed starters. 8 varieties x 9 = 72 plants. Sounds like a lot but its half what I planted last year. I give away a lot of plants to the neighbors.
Peas, direct sown and under the anti-mouse covers (gutter sections). I usually fill the gutter with soil and potting compost and start the peas in it. Then after the plants are about 4 inches tall I dig a trench in the garden and slide the plants out of the gutter and into the trench. Works great!
so, still waiting for bees to come and visit our squash flowers. the squash are not waiting.
going to see if I can assist nature and try to hand pollinate the kuri squash and the custard squash. male flowers are blooming every morning and i cut them and carefully expose the anther and knock the pollen into a parchment paper bindle with a soft brush like so:
now, when the fruiting, female blossoms open, i can brush some of this onto her and wait for results.
we shall see if this works. I sure as hell don’t know what I’m doing, but I am committed!
the females have not open yet. they are there, with a tiny little ball of a fruit underneath a closed flower. the male flowers open in the morning and wilt and close up by afternoon. I figured “collection” was a way to get ahead and possibly catch a girlflower as it blooms.
not exactly scientific, but applying what I know about horticulture (not much) and gardening (hit-and-miss successes over many years)and trying something new.
add: hopefully the bees come around before the cukes get going… those are tiny little flowers and I’d rather the bees do that work for me.
Oh. I didn’t realize the squash flowers are sexed! I will hand pollinate strawberries by dabbing a soft brush everywhere, to help get evenly sized berries. Male and female bits in each bloom, so I never had to think about it. @anon87143080 going to try that with the cucumbers!
Yes you can tell by looking at the base. The female flowers usually have a more bulbous base whereas male flowers are more cylindrical. The the female flowers are more energy intensive for the plant, so the male flowers usually start blooming a few weeks before the female flowers to get the bees used to coming around.
Thx! I’ve only grown cukes once and I obviously wasn’t paying enough attention. First time for the squash. Something sprouted where I put a seed, but I’m not sure it’s the squash.
Delicata squash. That really doesn’t look like a squash, does it? It could be a lot of things, the birds round here are messy eaters. It isn’t a sunflower or a cosmos tho
I don’t start much from seeds because of munchy cats, lack of space, lack of planning, laziness… but this year I’m trying sunflowers. Direct sowing last year netted exactly zero plants, thanks to outside critters. I’m using peat pots because I read somewhere that sunflowers don’t like to their roots messed with. I hope they don’t outgrow their little pots before the last frost date—still have the blackberry and dogwood winters to get through.
I dunno if it’s different in warmer climes, but here the guys at a garden centre recommended removing the peat pots ASAP, or slicing the outside, as often the roots didn’t manage to grow through them if left intact.
I was wondering about that too, because the pots seem rather tough. Slashing the sides before planting in the ground might not mess with the roots too much. Thanks for the tip!
Oooo good catch! It does look like milkweed and that area is maybe 10 ft from where a tropical milkweed was last year. I wonder if I could transplant it? I do want more of those. Only one from last year survived being cut to the ground and some freezes (they can harbor disease that kills Monarchs if not chopped back in winter).
@Wayward we have more sunflowers than we know what to do with after all the messy birbs and my fondness for them. I found one growing in a crack in the paving. My method on those is to sow a ton and some end up surviving the bunnies. They can be hard to transplant. Do cut the peat box, a good sharp box cutter works well. Cut off the bottom, if no roots are showing. If not, slash an X or two where no roots are. This worked for me before I decided mass sowing might be the way to go.
Yay gardening!
Since it’s snowing right now it seem I have some time until I have to go out and dig stuff up, but my garden is getting an overhaul this year because I miss growing peas and beans, and I want tomatoes that don’t get chomped (one bite per fruit, it’s enough to make you furious at the critters!)
The husband says he can make the enclosure I want, if I rebuild the herb spiral to be prettier/sturdier. It’s blackmail, pure and simple. And I’m giving in, because I need something to keep out squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits.
This is why we moved to cherry tomatoes. There is this one mocking bird who’d take a bite out of each large tomato. He still takes a bite out the cherries, but they are small enough for him to attempt to fly off. He’ll work on the same tomato, tossing it around the yard, for a while and we had plenty to share. Pretty funny and we got lots of tomatoes. The cherry kind could be substituted for most recipes.
If they have been moist long enough, the bottom usually rips off pretty easily, allowing the roots to grow downward. That said, i stopped using them years ago and just repurpose the sour crean containers ftom my wife’s bakery. Usually good for a season or two before they break down.
wait for results.
